Oakwood earns lone local ‘A,’ Dayton rises to ‘D’ on state report card

Charlotte McGuire, who represents much of the Dayton region, says parents need to be involved

— Oakwood is the only local school district to receive an overall “A” on the 2018-19 state report cards released Thursday, and Dayton Public Schools moved up from an “F” to a “D” after a year of intensive work.

Only 31 districts statewide earned an “A,” or roughly five percent. Last year, four local districts received an “A.”

Jefferson Twp. Local Schools, which went through severe staffing turmoil last year, dropped from a “D” to an “F” on the overall grade – one of only four districts in the state to receive an overall “F,” along with Springfield, Youngstown and East Cleveland.

The state puts heavy emphasis on how much year-over-year progress schools make, and a number of local schools earned an “A” on that component of the report card. That list included large districts Beavercreek, Centerville and Kettering, as well as Miami East, Brookville, Valley View and Carlisle.

Report card grades were expected to be slightly higher this year for reasons related to the graduation and progress components. A change in state law this summer altered how student progress, or year-over-year growth, is graded, softening the grading scale. Graduation rate is reported on a one-year lag, so this report card shows the Class of 2018’s performance. That class was the first that was allowed use alternative pathways to graduation rather than passing state tests.

Because of a change in state law this summer, no local school districts face the possibility of state takeover based on a bad report card this month. The state legislature is debating a new model to intervene with the lowest performing districts, but has not finalized their approach.

If the law had not changed, Dayton Public Schools would have been subject to takeover this fall if they received an overall grade of “F” on this report card. They would have avoided that takeover, given their overall grade of “D.”

This is the second year of Ohio’s new system where each school district gets an overall grade that combines six different report card categories, many of them tied to state testing. Pure test achievement and year-over-year progress each count for 20 percent of the grade. Making up 15 percent each are graduation rate, early-grade literacy improvement, gap closing between groups of students, and a “prepared for success” high school measure.

Many educators oppose the state report card system, pointing to a near-straight-line correlation between poverty and the state test scores that the report card is largely based on.

“It’s widely recognized that the current report cards rely too heavily on standardized tests and counter-intuitive methodologies that are stacked against low-income districts,” Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro said Thursday morning.